Pumping calf muscles – Tips from Arnold
Published August 12, 2011 | 
Pumping calf muscles – Tips from Arnold
There is a lot of confusion around training the calves. Not less than around press. How many repetitions to do? Many? Few? How often to train? At what rate? And etc. As for me, there are no white spots in this point. The truth was installed on my own experiences. And do not argue with me!
Weight load.
When I started to compete, many pointed the finger at my calves: they said, quite weak. I saw it and thought that I had no luck with calves and that it is my genetic deficiency. And somehow I went to the very south of Africa to get mind from my idol, the famous Reg Park. We have begun to exercise together and I complained about the weakness of my calves. In those days, I weighed somewhere 115 kg, and Park said that I had no hope to pump my calves on conventional simulators. They supposedly give quite the wrong load. I was surprised, because the maximum weight of a traditional stimulator is about 250 kg. Is not that enough? Park has explained that the stimulating load on any leg muscles, including calves, must exceed a minimum of three times your body weight. He led me to “enhance” stimulator in his home gym. There the load was twice as high and was 500 kg! And what do you think? In a month of training my calves increased by 2.5 cm! So here’s my advice: multiply your body weight by 3 and you get the best load for the calves. This recommendation is hardly suitable for beginners but for advanced and elite it is just right!
The frequency of training.
The foundation of league achievements is the regularity of training. Many of those pumping the calves do not have enough patience. But if you have it in abundance, it remains to find out how many times a week you should be trained. To this question I can answer with apothecary precision. The fact is that during my competitive career, I had rigorous training diaries. Now I just open a diary, then another, and add some figures. If we assume a starting point the very first training session in the status of the pros, then for the creation of bulk calves it took me 500 hours of training. It is 660 workouts with the duration of 45 minutes.
Since I’ve had four such trainings a week, it is easy to see the total length of the way: more than 3 years! Not even hope to cut the corner! I consider myself a genetically gifted athlete. Most of you, my readers, need much more time!
Amplitude. The longer, the better. Whatever exercise you do! There is only one exception: a technique of partial repetitions. At every fourth calf workout I did every repeat only for half or even for a quarter of the amplitude. The weight, of course, I greatly increased. Such a “hit” on the calves responded with strong stimulation of growth of their masses!
How many repetitions?
I usually did 5 sets of an exercise and changed the number of repetitions for each workout. Let’s say today I did 10 reps per set. At the next workout the number of repetitions increased to 12-15. There were days when I did only 3-4 repeats, and sometimes Tom Platz visited me during my workout. He always trained the same way: doing a set of 30, 40 and 50 repeats. To prove that I was no less tough, I had to repeat all his freaks. It turned out that I have always trained differently. But this is the key to success. Monotony is the enemy of the muscle growth! If you’re, like I used to be, not satisfied with your calves, take my experience. It involves a long and very difficult road, but in the final you will get the same calves, as I have. However, the same people do not exist. You’ll be better!
Psyche – an ally or enemy?
Published August 8, 2011 | Did you have such things happen?
You know that exercise is necessary, but you do not want to go to train. It would seem to be a question of motivation. It turns out that big muscles are not very needed to you. No, my friends, everything is much more complicated. In our brains are as if sitting some evil trolls that impede our desires. Moreover, the stronger your desire, the stronger the resistance. In short, whenever you want to achieve something, your mind will desperately interfere. This phenomenon was recently discovered by psychologists. They believe that the fault lays with our ancestors monkeys. They led gregarious way of life, where a member of the herd cannot be a maverick. He needs to live according to the common needs, forgetting his own. The psychological mechanism of suppression of the initiative, according to the scientists, helped the monkeys to survive, and then was transferred to the man. First he also led the herd life and the legacy of the monkeys was very helpful.
What to do? How to deal? The psychologists advise the following. Use the old method of the weightlifters. Give yourself a resounding slap in the face with both arms and severely shake your head. Immediately grab the gym bag and rush out of the house. Show your psyche that there is no way back. Do not leave it any slightest gap, where could stick a blade of a doubt!
It is important, as psychologists point out, not to engage with yourself in the internal dialogue. No need to persuade yourself and give some rebuttals, no need to browse through the training diary and looking at your idols! Thus, you only give your enemy the right to reply. In short, always answer the doubt with action! Behave like a rhino! It also does not listen to others’ advice, but merely ran in a straight line and on a running breach the obstacle!
Yet motivation is a great power!
Remember Lindemann. This hero went across the ocean in frail boat without food and water. He wanted to prove that people, who were shipwrecked, can survive if they keep the strength of spirit. Lindeman ate the caught fish and collected in palms the rainwater. However, the most difficult was to preserve the right course, after all, Lindemann had no compass! And he proved that even this task is doable! Do you know his secret? As Lindeman says, initially he did not believe in luck. This disbelief was his worst enemy. It persuaded to surrender, to leave the supposedly hopeless idea. And Lindeman took to inspire himself the opposite – steadfast belief in success! From this triumphant experience over time has grown a whole psychological and philosophical system of auto-suggestion. It can do real miracles!
If you have a goal, every day before going to sleep, repeat it out loudly for 6 times, 6 times in half a voice and 12 times in a low voice. There will come a time when it will find the same immortal power that all subconscious desires. It will be as unmanageable and strong as the desire or need for procreation! It will be for you something of a true Guidance Candle beyond the pitiful attacks of the timid mind. Why, so simple?
Yes, it is really hard only for the pioneers. They give us the weapons of victory. But learning to use it – is also an art!
Proper breathing helps to gain weight
Published August 6, 2011 | Here it is the sad poetry of endurance sports. By 40 years no less than half of all bodybuilders suffer from heart diseases. No, heavy lifting by itself is not harmful. It’s just different. In the conventional technique of weight training. Nobody thinks about proper breathing! Usually an athlete makes a powerful breath, holds this breath and takes some weight. Holding of breath increases strength, but at the same time, it affects the heart muscle. If you 1-2 repetitions per set, this negative impact is of short-term and does not lead to the development of cardiovascular diseases. However, multi repeated set has quite different implications. There is a possibility of the development of the coronary artery disease, arrhythmias and many other complex disorders of heart.
Worst of all is that breath holding leads to an immediate rise in blood pressure. Over time, hypertension becomes a persistent feature, transforms into hypertension and leads to strokes and heart attacks.
Holding the breath leads to deterioration of brain blood supply and even provokes vomiting. The typical habit of the fans to do squats to vomit just means that the effect of the exercise on heart is critical.
Sports physicians recommend bodybuilder not to hold the breath and offer a simple and safe technique, intending partial holding of breath. The basis of this technique is to bring breathing to a certain rhythm, which coincides with the rate of repetitions. Moreover, sports medicine believes that rhythmic breathing is a basic prerequisite for muscle growth.
Holding the breath leads to a weakening of the blood flow in the working muscle, but this cannot be helpful. In addition, oxygen is an important agent for muscle growth. The more oxygen in blood, the better. Frequent breath holding during the bodybuilding exercises reduces the oxygen level in blood, notably, to its lowest level when it comes to vertigo.
BREATHE PROPER!
Here is a description of the principles of “bodybuilding” breathing designed by the sports medicine at the example of bench press. Remove the barbell from the stops.
Hold the barbell in the straight arms, inhale deeper than usual.
Hold your breath and lower the barbell to your chest.
Force the barbell upward, still holding your breath.
When you pass the hardest point of lift, exhale. When the rod barbell returns to the starting position, inhale again.